Wait for Me (12 page)

Deliberately, he closed, locked, and chained the door—a gesture that symbolized not safety but captivity. An allusion to demonstrate that while he was about to make himself vulnerable, she was the prisoner and in far greater peril.

She crossed her ankles and leaned back on her elbows and watched his raincoat and jacket come off. She forced herself to appear cool and collected, but her heart was pounding in her throat, her hands were tingling, and she felt a need to draw in huge amounts of air. She was battle-ready, staking her will against his. Her self-control against his determination. Her power to seduce against his need to conquer.

“Aren’t you going to dim the lights and turn on music for this?” he asked, pulling his silk tie free of his collar.

She shook her head.

He slipped off his shoes and made light work of the buttons on his shirt, his gaze locked on her face. Her expression was avid but unpledged. In the silence, they could hear the building growing older as the seconds passed, and it made the friction between them grow doubly quick and strong. It was him and her, their bodies and the relentless tension, with no distractions. It wasn’t long before his self-consciousness and feelings of foolishness were replaced by an empowering call to extract a reaction from her.

It was there, in the dark shadows of her eyes, in the tautness of her shoulders, in the dryness she licked from her lips and tried to swallow from her mouth. The intensity surged when he stepped to the end of the bed to remove his shirt and started on his belt buckle.

He looked down on her with eyes darker and deeper than the secrets of hell. Her skin prickled. Anticipation twisted in her abdomen. Desire pulsed between her legs. He was going to win, she feared, feeling as if she might faint dead away before he finished.

He was too strong, his confidence too overpowering. His thoughts were too plain, his ambitions toward her too clear. His shoulders were thick and broad with corded muscle, his chest wide and rippled. Sun-kissed skin lay smooth and taut over softly rounded mounds of sinew that could cradle or crush.

He shuffled out of his pants and socks at once. Her raincoat might just as well have been a sauna. She was hot. She was wet. She was weak. It was suffocating.

He stood tall, tempting, and tempestuous before her. The pressure between them mounted, like an invisible storm. Electric. Disruptive. Frightening.

She startled him when she moved, sliding to the end of the bed. He was wary of her and watchful, ready for any move she made.

“Everything, Oliver,” she said, her voice thick and heavy.

“You ever think of being an auditor?” he asked. His gaze meshed with hers as he hooked the elastic of his briefs with his thumbs.

“No. But I’ve known my share. They don’t let you get away with much, do they?” she asked with a wicked smile.

He’d come this far, he thought, sliding his shorts to his knees and working them down from there with his legs. This was her little party—he’d have his later.

She stood. She walked slowly beyond his peripheral vision. He waited for her to come around him from behind. He filled his lungs with air and waited. His nerves were stretched raw.

“You’re beautiful, Oliver,” she said, passing before him. Her hand reached out to glide up his inner thigh, slide past his arousal, and cruise over his lower abdomen. “I don’t think there’s a scratch on you.”

She took another survey, her hand slipping across his ribs, coasting over his rear end, drifting across his sleek exterior as if she were thinking of buying him—or a classic Studebaker.

When next their gazes met, he almost laughed. She had what he liked to call that oh-God-take-me look he’d seen so often on a woman’s face. But he didn’t laugh. With Holly there was more to it. It was like oh-God-take-me-forever-and-always-I’m-trusting-you-not-to-hurt-me-I’m-believing-in-you. She really knew how to pressure a guy.

That made him smile. He was ready for her. He was ready to take on the stress and strain that he knew loving Holly would bring. He was ready to laugh and cry with her, ready to cheer her when she was down and listen to her bitch about the world when it crossed her. He wanted to hold her hand in the dark and eat the meat loaf she left cooking too long. He wanted her. All of her. And he was ready for her.

She was smiling, too, when she placed both hands flat on his chest. His heart was beating so hard, she was afraid it would bounce out and hit her in the face.

His hands turned to fists at his sides. He knew what was coming and lowered his head to make it easier for her.

She could hear his rapid breathing and feel the tension in his body. Tilting her head slightly, she outlined his lower lip with the tip of her tongue. Muscles jumped and contracted, rigid as steel bands beneath her hands. He was like the most tolerant of the ferocious jungle beasts, pushed beyond his endurance, set to pounce, awaiting the crucial, lethal moment.

Often—too often—she had a tendency to push her luck.

“I want you, Oliver,” she said, kicking off her shoes.

He didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare breathe. Her hands left his chest to reach behind and lower the zipper of her dress. He heard the soft snap of elastic.

There was a most exquisite and wholly stirring moment of uncertainty before she spoke again.

“Is it okay to tell you that I love you?”

He gave her a stiff-necked nod.

He kept trying to warn her that he wouldn’t be responsible, couldn’t tolerate much more, wasn’t in any shape to be toyed with, that he didn’t want to rush it but...

She broke eye contact for a fraction of a second when she shrugged out of the top of her dress and bra, then slid everything else to the floor in one quick movement.

“It doesn’t scare you? My loving you?”

He shook his head, swallowing hard as he glanced down at her nakedness. Wave after wave of excitement washed over his body, depositing layer upon layer of frustrated needs and untapped passions.

And he wasn’t scared?

Well, maybe he was, just a little—of exploding. But he wasn’t afraid of her love. It was almost...

“It’s almost as if we’ve always been like this,” he said, marveling as he looked deep into her umber eyes to see footprints, side by side, deep in the sands of time. “Always.”

She worked his fists open to slip her fingers between his. She stepped closer, the tips of her breasts barely touching his chest as she pressed her lips gently, tenderly to his.

It was Christmas morning, prom night, the day the orthodontist removed the braces, Graduation Day, the driver’s license in the mail, finding Carolann, the first kiss, the first paycheck, the end of a job well done... it was every long-awaited moment of her life and then some.

He squeezed her fingers between his. His lips played over hers, teasing and tasting. The pressure increased. His mouth grew greedy. Bare flesh met bare flesh in a glorious dance conceived during the birth of time. In a savage motion he grabbed her thighs, pulling them apart as he lifted and locked them around his waist. He turned and lowered them both to sit on the bed. He cupped her breasts in both hands. Her fingers clutched at his shoulders as her head lolled back, her back bowed, and she moaned blissfully as he feasted.

Pagan blood boiled. Hearts tattooed a rhythm of celebration, and the world retreated, leaving one man and one woman, alone, on a common quest.

’Twas the day before Christmas Eve and all through the apartment house, not a creature was stirring, not even... she shuddered, wondering if there was anything in the mousetraps under the sink and behind the radiator. She hadn’t checked lately, but suspected it would be a good time to invite the little boy from 12C back for cookies and milk.

It was too bad the bigger rats of the world couldn’t be disposed of as easily, she thought, cuddling closer to Oliver, filling her mind with his scent. Her heart ached with happiness when his arms tightened about her and, in his sleep, he shifted his weight to accommodate her.

He didn’t know. She closed her eyes and offered a small prayer of gratitude. His donation coming the same day as the letter from the Carey Foundation, advising them that the grant given to the Joey Paulson Clinic was being reevaluated for renewal after the first of the year, was too much of a coincidence. It hadn’t made sense that he would be giving and taking away at the same time.

He didn’t know. Because, as with most large bodies of money, the Carey Foundation was run by a small horde of objective and, as in most cases, indifferent lawyers and accountants, and a handful of bored and indifferent advisers. He was simply a figurehead to the foundation, with no responsibility in its day-to-day operations. She’d have bet her last penny that he couldn’t name five organizations receiving funds from the endowment bearing his name.

And that was all right. She didn’t expect him to be superhuman, didn’t expect him to be any different than other rich men with vast financial responsibilities. She understood the delegation of responsibility. She understood that he couldn’t be everywhere, do everything, know everything, and still speak in coherent sentences, or still be beside her in bed, his warm body wrapped around her like a protective comforter.

She understood and she didn’t expect, and she was glad he didn’t know that his foundation was about to put her out of work, not to mention close another door to hundreds of needy people. How could she love him otherwise?

And she wasn’t going to tell him, she decided, as the sun tried to illuminate the gray skies with morning, turning darkness to dim light at the windows. He wasn’t responsible for her life. She didn’t need him to fight her battles or to use his influence to get her what she wanted. She’d go to the hearing and she’d state her own case. She’d make that finely dressed, well-fed committee see the need to keep the Paulson Clinic open. She was a money-people manipulator, that’s what she did, and she was good at it. She was glad he didn’t know.

“Those gears in your head are keeping me awake,” he said, sliding down in the bed, then sliding back up, tipping his face into her neck. “What are you thinking about? It’s too early to be thinking.”

She laughed softly, rubbing her toes together as he kissed a path ear-to-ear along her neck.

“I was thinking it was time to get up, but I could be wrong.”

“A rare find. A woman whose mind is as flexible as her body.”

“A horny contortionist?”

“Those are hard to find too,” he mumbled, pushing the sheets lower to expose her breasts. His hand ran smoothly between them, across her abdomen, a little farther south. “I love watching your eyes.” He kissed her quickly. “They sparkle like gold dust at first, then they turn molten like liquid gold, hot and flowing.”

“Yours get darker,” she said, her breath gaspy, her body tensing in excitement with the play of his fingers between her legs. Her hand rose to his face. “Black. Like an abyss. I’m afraid I’ll fall in.”

He took her hand and lowered it to the bed, finding the other fisted beneath the pillow. He raised his body and settled it over hers.

“Go ahead and fall in, Holly,” he said, separating her legs with his knees, looking deep into her eyes. “It’s safe.”

Would it be safe to fall deep into Oliver’s soul? It called and spoke to her in a voice as familiar to her as... as anything she’d ever known before. There were still so many things she and Oliver hadn’t talked about, so many things he hadn’t yet told her, but it didn’t seem to matter. She knew him. Where she might have tested any other man’s worthiness, she innately believed in Oliver.

Oh, he would surely disappoint her in his humanness, she knew. He wasn’t perfect. He would be angry and moody and forgetful and commit a hundred other imperfect acts, just as she would. But always his heart would be open to her. Always his soul would be faithful. And never would his mind scheme against her.

Until the day he died he would... Until the day he died... Something deep in the recesses of her mind tore loose. Even after the day he died... even after... Something free-floating and indecipherable pulled at her memory. Even after...

A moan of intense pleasure escaped her as he suckled her breast. Consciousness narrowed to sensation alone, to feeling without choice or control. The fragmented memory was gone. Every nip to her flesh, every touch of his tongue, was sweet torment. Her arms extended at her sides, her muscles aching with splendid expectation as he dribbled kisses across her ribs, nibbled and tasted the soft quivering skin of her abdomen. Palms parted, fingers locked in joyful battle, as he spread her legs wide and plunged her over and over again into the infinite chasm between pain and ecstasy.

Suddenly he was with her, above, beside, within her. Together they were one, a whole. Together they traveled time and space. Together they knew absolute fulfillment. Together they were life.

Wrapped in a damp towel, he left her in the bathroom to do “girl stuff.” Feeling clean and refreshed after a shower would never mean what he’d thought it meant before he’d taken one with Holly. He grinned and shook his head in recollection. Nothing would ever be the same with Holly... or without her, he realized, falling back onto the bed, enjoying the coolness of the sheets against his overheated skin.

He wallowed in the sheer delight of being happy and within the sound of her voice for a few more minutes, then rolled over on his empty stomach.

“I’m starving,” he wailed pitifully.

“Gee, Oliver,” she said, coming to the bathroom door with a look of shock and disgust etched on her face. “Don’t you ever quit? I can hardly walk.”

When he frowned at her, she grinned—he grinned back at her proudly.

“I need food now,” he said, defining his appetite.

“That’s what I like about you, Oliver. You keep all your most basic needs wrapped up in the same general area, and you don’t need more than a bath towel to do it.”

He laughed but didn’t deny it. She padded into the kitchen in her bare feet and robe, and he rolled over again like a puppy waiting to have his tummy rubbed.

“What are all these?” he asked, reading the titles on her bookshelves upside down.

“All what?” she called back.